The Long Way Home

“Agneau-de-Dieu,” said Myrna, doing the translation. “Lamb of God. But Tabaquen? I don’t know how that translates.”

“It’s a bastardization,” said Beauvoir. “It’s not really French. It was named by the natives a long, long time ago, before Europeans arrived.”

“What does it mean?” asked Clara. “Do you know?”

“It means ‘sorcerer,’” said Gamache, as he entered the house.

THIRTY-THREE

Beauvoir and Clara were up half the night, discussing, considering. Emailing, searching and plotting a course.

Finally, about two in the morning, they had it organized and went to their beds, only to wake up at six when their alarms sounded.

“What time is it?” came Myrna’s sleepy voice. “God, Clara, it’s just after six. Is the house on fire?”

“We need to leave if we’re going to catch the nine o’clock plane.”

“What?”

Myrna sat up in bed, completely alert and slightly alarmed.

Down the hall, Gamache was already sitting on the side of the bed. He’d offered to stay up with Clara and Beauvoir, to help them, but had been persuaded that his presence wasn’t necessary. At all.

“You were successful?” he said to Jean-Guy, who was looking bleary but eager.

“There’s a flight out of La Malbaie in three hours. It’ll take us to Tabaquen.”

“Really?” said Myrna, when Clara explained it. “Can’t we just drive?”

“There’re no roads,” said Clara, trying to coax the large woman out of the small bed. “It’s a fishing village. The only way in is by boat or plane.”

“We chose the plane,” Beauvoir was explaining to Gamache, who was in the shower. “It stops at all the villages and will take all day, but we’ll be there in time for dinner.”

They were dressed and out the door by seven.

Chartrand was standing by his van.

“We’re taking our car,” said Jean-Guy, tossing his bag into the trunk.

“I’m going with you,” Chartrand said. “No need to take two vehicles. You can come back for yours when we get back.”

The two men stared at each other.

“Get in,” said Clara.

She climbed into the van, looked at Jean-Guy and patted the seat next to her.

Beauvoir looked at her, then at Chartrand. And finally at Gamache, who shrugged.

“You heard her, Jean-Guy. Grab your things.”

“Patron,” Jean-Guy started to say, but Gamache put his hand on Beauvoir’s arm to stop him.

“Clara’s in charge. She knows what she’s doing.”

“She once ate potpourri thinking it was chips,” said Jean-Guy. “She took a bath in soup, thinking it was bath salts. She turned a vacuum cleaner into a sculpture. She has no idea what she’s doing.”

Gamache smiled. “At least if it all goes south, we have someone else to blame for once.”

“You do,” mumbled Beauvoir, tossing his bag into the back of the van. “I always blamed you anyway. I’m no further ahead.”

Twenty minutes later, Chartrand turned into the tiny airport at La Malbaie and pulled up to the shack.

“Is that it?” asked Myrna, eyeing the small plane on the tarmac.

“I guess so,” Gamache said, and tried not to think about it. He was used to taking tiny planes into remote villages and landing on what most pilots would not consider a runway. But it was never fun.

“Dibs on the exit row,” said Myrna.

A young man came out of the shack and looked at them, assessing them like cargo. “I’m Marc Brossard, the pilot. You the ones who emailed last night?”

“That’s right,” said Jean-Guy. “Four to go to Tabaquen.”

“Five,” Chartrand said.

Beauvoir turned to face him. “You dropped us off. That’s far enough. You can’t come with us.”

“But I can. All I have to do is buy a ticket.” He handed over his credit card to the young pilot. “There. Easy. I can fly.”

He said it in such a Peter Pan way that Myrna laughed. Beauvoir did not. He scowled at the gallery owner and turned to Gamache.

“Nothing we can do, Jean-Guy.”

“Not if we don’t try,” he said. “Sir.”

Gamache leaned in to Beauvoir and said, “We can’t stop him. And do we want to?”

But Beauvoir hadn’t given up. “Is there even room?”

“Always room for one more, my mother says,” said the pilot, returning Chartrand’s card to him and looking to the east. “Better hurry.”